England vs Germany... again

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

England vs Germany... again

no dg, his method works better because the team plays with structure, and over the course of two years the team is almost unrecognizable from the shambolic embarrassing mess it was under steve staunton. I've never seen england play as cohesively as Ireland did in paris. And that with a team with keith andrews and glenn whelan in midfield.

I don't know what is happening andy reid, but there is usually more than meets the eye. I mean no-one could understand why jack charlton kept leaving out dave O'Leary back when he was the equivalent of Nemanja vidic.

of course the passage of time has revealed that jack was completely right because you can't build a positive team spirit if you have a toxic viper cunt like O'leary there pouring poison in people's ears all the time.

[Levin]

England vs Germany... again

Andy Newman wrote:

Austria’s international sucess was truncated by unification with Germany, but the lesson learned was that the Austrian national side had been built around just one club, ASV Hertha Vien, so that most of the players were intimately connected with each other.

This was the model used by legendary Hungarian national coach, Gusztáv Sebes, who knew that to build a word beating national side, he needed to build a world beating club side. His opportunity came in 1949 when all Hungarian football clubs were taken into state ownership. Sebes lobbied for the team, Budapesti Honvéd SE, to become the official team of the Hungarian Army under his control.

The lesson for England is clear. Manchester United should be nationalised, placed under the control of the Ministry of Defence, and the best English players from other clubs should be conscripted into the army to play for them. As market forces would no longer determine footballer salaries, they could follow the example of Honvéd and give them all the rank and pay of an army major.

from the Socialist Unity Blog

Well it's a solution of sorts...

[Guest]

England vs Germany... again

Technicky Vizionar wrote:

That is just not true. The majority of Joe Cole's caps have been as a starter, and his competiive international record is 17 starts, 8 subs (four of which were his first six competitive games, and he started every competitive international that he was fit for for three and a half years) , and he was the first player subbed in just four of those games, and has been dropped just once when fit (and on that occasion made way for Michael Owen).

Well, genuinely, you've got me there. My mind's been playing tricks on me - you've consulted the records and I was wrong. Fair enough.

Just to clarify, I've had a look at the stats too, and in the 31 games he's started, he's only lasted the full 90 minutes 11 times. His remaining 25 caps have come as a substitute.

He played in 6 out of Capello's first seven games, did the square root of fuck all in them

Wait a minute. He was excellent in Capello's very first game in charge against Switzerland, and made the first goal of his tenure. He then spared his coach's blushes by scoring a late equaliser in an appalling early season friendly against the Czechs, and followed that with a vital brace of goals in the opening WCQ in Andorra. Whether you like him or not, in what language does that constitute "the square root of fuck all"?

In the two games he 'played', he offered nothing, did nothing, yet still looked the most exhausted player on the pitch, which when you consider that Wayne Rooney's natural complexion is 'knackered', that's an impressive thing for Joe Cole to acheive.

That he "looked the most exhausted player on the pitch" is debatable to say the least when every single England player looked like they were pedalling through tar. He offered nothing and did nothing. Plainly true. But where else was the quality coming from? I've no idea how, in terms of technique, ability and proven international pedigree, players like Milner or Wright-Phillips would even get a commensurate amount of time on the pitch. If you're going to single out players who have manifestly failed to perform over this World Cup, there should be plenty ahead of Cole in the queue to explain themselves.

The cunt had the ball thirty times. He found a teammate fourteen times, and the opposition/touchline sixteen times. In both games he gave the ball away more often that he found a teammate.

That sounds about average for the team then, but again, I don't have the stats to hand. Gerrard, Lampard, Barry, Milner, Lennon and Rooney were all granted more time to fuck things up though.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That's the funniest thing posted on OTF since someone claimed that the Irish 2002 World Cup squad contained six World Class players.

Glad you liked it. Seriously though, do you not think that players like Iniesta, Xavi and Villa are precisely what Cole has always wanted to be, but struggled because a) the style of the Premier League largely forbids it, and b) he's more or less the only player (certainly the only Englishman) of his type? Wouldn't he have flourished playing with like-minded midfielders, and in a more technical footballing culture?

Buy it. Gerrard, Lampard, Cole, Rooney are better for their clubs because they have better service and better cover from their foreign team mates.

I agree entirely. They are however so abysmal for their country that lack of service and lack of cover can't completely absolve them. This is not the first time they've been exposed and for more than two years they've had one of the finest club coaches in the world trying to make sense of it all.

That would be true if a) Cole was remotely fit and b) handn't been tried so often as to have been proven not to be anything special.

Fitness is not really - however the players may have looked - something that you or I can effectively gauge from here. Not one of the players could be adequately described as looking "remotely fit", and stats won't help there either. I think they could disprove your second point though.

[Bored Of Education]

England vs Germany... again

Andy Newman wrote:
Austria’s international sucess was truncated by unification with Germany, but the lesson learned was that the Austrian national side had been built around just one club, ASV Hertha Vien, so that most of the players were intimately connected with each other.

This was the model used by legendary Hungarian national coach, Gusztáv Sebes, who knew that to build a word beating national side, he needed to build a world beating club side. His opportunity came in 1949 when all Hungarian football clubs were taken into state ownership. Sebes lobbied for the team, Budapesti Honvéd SE, to become the official team of the Hungarian Army under his control.

The lesson for England is clear. Manchester United should be nationalised, placed under the control of the Ministry of Defence, and the best English players from other clubs should be conscripted into the army to play for them. As market forces would no longer determine footballer salaries, they could follow the example of Honvéd and give them all the rank and pay of an army major.

from the Socialist Unity Blog

Well it's a solution of sorts.

Joking aside, isn't this what the two over-achieving sides in the WC - New Zealand and North Korea - have done in part?

[Duncan Gardner]

England vs Germany... again

The Mighty Kubelgog!!! wrote:

no dg, his method works better because the team plays with structure, and over the course of two years the team is almost unrecognizable from the shambolic embarrassing mess it was under steve staunton

Aye, Trap's method works better than Stan's (or arguably Kerr's, or MicMac's). But it's still only one qualification between the four of them in seven attempts. The improvement is obvious, but the achievement only relative.

I've never seen england play as cohesively as Ireland did in paris. And that with a team with keith andrews and glenn whelan in midfield

Look, I don't want to labour the point but your acknowledged best performance in years was a draw. I didn't watch much of England's qualifiers but nine wins out of 10 sounds cohesive enough.

[dalliance]

England vs Germany... again

Could North Korea losing all their games but only two heavily be dressed up as overachieving for anyone outside their own propaganda machine ?

[dalliance]

England vs Germany... again

We do know that Eriksson played the FA like the fools they are. So affronted at the prospect that he could leave for Chelsea at the slightest whiff of interest they extended his already lucrative contract, But then this is no different from Capello being happy to have the early break clause removed from his contract because the FA feared he might go to Inter.

Anyway, we will never know the in's and out's of Eriksson's own personal motivations, but ultimately he is judged by results and in retrospect a consistent quarter final level with exits by the narrowest of margins does not look that bad to me. I always thought that was the level they were anyway, he failed to overachieve for sure but I don't think he underachieved necessarily either. The problem he had was that everyone else thought not winning was underachieving.

His record is standing up pretty well compared with his two successors at least.

[Ray de Galles]

England vs Germany... again

I mentioned that in the thread about Cote d'Ivoire v Brazil game. The BBC commentator and colour man (Lawrenson, I think) spent about half the game spewing poison over Sven's ability and complained about his tactics, team talks and substitutions (although on the surface they were referring to the match they were covering it was all done through the prism of his time with England)

All this while one of his successor's was presiding over a far worse disaster than Sven managed and CiV were hardly being humiliated against Brazil.

[Bored Of Education]

England vs Germany... again

Could North Korea losing all their games but only two heavily be dressed up as overachieving for anyone outside their own propaganda machine ?

It would be churlish to suggest that keeping Brazil to within a one goal lead and only shipping 11 goals in the Group Of Death (well, death warmed up in retrospect) isn't better than anyone imagined.

England would have probably got a 3-0 loss somewhere in that group

[Ray de Galles]

England vs Germany... again

I certainly wouldn't automatically expect any team in a modern World Cup to let in 7 goals in a game and 12 (not 11) goals in 3 group games.

[Reed John]

England vs Germany... again

The lesson for England is clear. Manchester United should be nationalised, placed under the control of the Ministry of Defence, and the best English players from other clubs should be conscripted into the army to play for them. As market forces would no longer determine footballer salaries, they could follow the example of Honvéd and give them all the rank and pay of an army major.

Is that a serious suggestion? Is forced conscription part of the socialist platform these days?

[Reed John]

England vs Germany... again

BTW, what is wrong with the "University of Football" idea? It sounds like the training of coaches is a major problem.

It also occurs to me that soccer/football is the only sport that I know of where coaches are supposed to have qualifications. As far as I know, there's really nothing like that here for baseball, basketball, football. There may be for hockey, however. In most sports here, the usual path to a coaching career is college player, college team graduate assistant or high school assistant coach, college assistant coach or club team coach or high school coach, small college coach, bigger college assistant, college head coach, pro assistant, pro coach, then maybe national side assistant and/or youth team coach.

Or, if one actually played professionally, you can skip the high school and college coaching and become a coach in the minor leagues and work your way up. That's especially true in baseball because there are so many minor league and independent league teams that if you had a somewhat respectable pro career, you'll certainly know somebody who will give you a job coaching somewhere in their organization. It might be batting coach for the Billings Mustangs, but you're in the door.

It's rather hit and miss, of course.

Which is why I think that pile of suggestions contradicts itself. In the beginning it cries for more coaching education - that's good. But then it says it wants more "football men." That means just hiring ex-players. That's the opposite of focusing on coach training. It's possible that ex-players could be good coaches with some training, but by and large, just stepping off the pitch into a manager's job rarely works, in any sport, and it seems the chances of it working are inversely related to how spectacular the guy's playing career was.

[Uncle Toni]

England vs Germany... again

harrycaul wrote:

England are completely fucking useless at football, and I'm really not sure how many times some people have to see it to believe it.

That's pretty much it.

Discussion about the number of players in the domestic game is largely irrelevant, as often these things (as in a group of good players) just happen to be cyclical.
Or comparison with much smaller countries like Ireland;compare them with Germany, Spain, France, Italia etc.

[garcia]

England vs Germany... again

thomas mueller copies TMK:

``England have so many top stars in their squad that they will always be part and parcel of the international football scene,'' reflected Muller.

``But there are so many 'alpha males'. It is difficult to have so many 'alpha males' and have them row in the same direction.

``You don't only need only chiefs, you also need a few Indians.

``You need people who are ready and willing to do the hard work.

``It may be a problem with England that players are simply not mentally prepared to go that extra mile for their team-mates.''

dalliance - shawcross, zamora, whoever - the point is they're not lampard, terry, gerrard - proven failures who've wasted chance after chance. shawcross and zamora would be happy to be involved, would enthusiastically carry out whatever plan they were given without moaning about being played in the wrong position or organising a back-room rebellion against the manager. the supposed superior quality of these players is an illusion created by the quality players around them in their club sides and saturation television coverage. when you see blackburn's keith andrews dominate real madrid's lassana diarra at the stade de france you have to re-examine what you believed about gradations of ability in football. england's caste of stars have been there for years and have grown lazy, corrupt and degenerate. kick them all the fuck out and start again.

for my part i desperately hope mourinho offers gerrard an escape route from his anfield hell. he has been the beating heart of our club too long, we don't deserve him any more. it's time he went and fulfilled his destiny elsewhere.

[anton pulisov]

England vs Germany... again

Yep. Of course England could keep possesion and pass the ball around, they have the necessary skill to do so. The players just don't want to. Gerrard and Lampard would rather take speculative shots. Milner would rather run into somebody.

The Irish players have, for the most part, played and grown up in the same English footballing system as the English players, yet Ireland is not so bad at keeping the football. At the 2002 World Cup: 53%-47% for Ireland against Germany and 55%-45% against against those slick passers of the ball Spain. So I also agree that there is a mental weakness where the English football players are concerned. They think they are too good to actually have to play football. They just want to defend heroicly or score goals. All the stuff in between they consider below themselves. That's for the Essiens, Petrovs and Mascheranos to do.

[garcia]

England vs Germany... again

what he said.

[Tactical Genius]

England vs Germany... again

Braai Jan wrote:

Yep. Of course England could keep possesion and pass the ball around, they have the necessary skill to do so. The players just don't want to. Gerrard and Lampard would rather take speculative shots. Milner would rather run into somebody.

They just want to defend heroicly or score goals. All the stuff in between they consider below themselves. That's for the Essiens, Petrovs and Mascheranos to do.

There it is, right there.
The truest shit I every read.

Muller is also right, The team is full of too many bertie big bollocks who are on the pitch doing what they want.
However, it is not just the fault of the players, i also blame the fans too for bigging up these players and being blind to their deficiencies.

You see, anyone can come out all wise and stuff blaming Gerrard, Lampard and Rooney after this debacle, but cometh the season and exeryone besides a handful on OTF (most of whom are in the AEB) who call these players what they are 24/7 365.

[Tactical Genius]

England vs Germany... again

Also, i do not think that having all coaches taking the UEFA badges will solve much.

As i in 2004

I believe it is the coaching and scouting systems at youth level. Kids are still selected by the clubs on their athletic ability and physical size than their technical ability. Just like they were when we were kids.
People might think I am being flippant when I say all coaches but until this happens the cycle will continue. Granted the introduction on novel European training techniques and academy system will improve things somewhat, but the problem is that the people in charge of identifying and nurturing young talent are either the same coaches as there were under the bad old days of Charles Hughes or the old ex players from the days when determination football really was king. (Malcolm X/TG) 2004

English players are technically weak and too tactically dumb to comprehend anything more sophisticated than hit and hope. They are carried at club level tby their foreign teammates who make them look much better than they already are. (Malcolm X/TG) 2004

I have seen nothing in the intervening six years that have changed my mind.
I tried to point out the deficiencies of the team and point out the massive flaws that no doubt the germans would expose after the slovenia game but was was branded and Anti-England badminder (which i am but i wasn't).

I expected England to be thrashed and when i saw the teamsheet, it was blatantly obvious what would transpire.

With regards to coaching, i would sack all coaches, all coach educators and spend the money on making public areas safe for kids to play.
Kids would learn alot more about passing, dribbling, shielding the ball, creating and using space playing 30 a side in the local park than attending alot of these clubs that are run by well meaning but useless (as Steven Keshi would call) junk coaches.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

England vs Germany... again

the other thing that is difficult to stomach is how fucking unwatchable the football is. england were the most unwatchable team at euro 2000, at the 2002 world cup they were unspeakable to watch, at the 2006 world cup it was pencils up the nose time and this time they reached new lows.

The odd thing is the total lack of balance in the team. One of my favourite teams to watch were the danish team of 2002-4. They didn't have many good players, their star was john dahl tomasson, but they were a perfectly balanced team where everyone knew what their job was, so they'd punch well above their weight, up until the point that their lack of quality would catch them out.

But they knew what they were doing at all times. Tofting or gravesen would get the ball, know that they could hit it long to the targetman, short to tomasson, out wide to the two wingers who were ready to race past the full back, or play it simply to each other, or to the full backs who were pushing forward.

They'd get just as far as england, with players who played for charlton and bolton and the like, and you'd look forward to seeing them play.

The only time that england have been interesting to watch is when they've had an exciting 18 year old who hasn't been swallowed up by all the bullshit. even then the rest of the players serve up some terribly dull football.

[darkglobe]

England vs Germany... again

Carry on....

[Tactical Genius]

England vs Germany... again

Kubelgog.

I remeber claiming about 6 years ago that Thomas Graveson is a better international footballer than Steven Gerrard.

I was called mad.
By the same people who thought Gerrard had a great game against the USA and Slovenia.

[garcia]

England vs Germany... again

i should point out that england beat denmark 3-0 in the 2002 world cup 2nd round. even heskey scored.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

England vs Germany... again

that's right, I did say that their players weren't very good though.

[anton pulisov]

England vs Germany... again

Great, I wrote a massive long post only to be told I wasn't logged in and lose everything. Somebody has to do something about that.

Anyway, regarding Gerrard. Even when he was 25, at the peak of his powers, a permanently injured, 33 year old Roy Keane would regularly make a fool out of him. A sign of a great player is how good he is when he loses that extra pace he had when he was younger. It didn't seem to matter for Zidane in 2006. He ran rings around the Brazilians and Spanish. At this World Cup, one of the best players, if not the best player, is Diego Forlan, who seems to get better with every passing year. Gerrard however, is beginning to get seriously shown up. He's the English Robbie Keane in a way, a player who is exactly the same now as he was when he was 20.

So, a new England manager. Firstly, England need a manager who understands that good football is essentially made up of a number of simple but well executed elements, with moments of great class or good luck separating teams. Not every team can be lucky all the time and not every team can produce moments of great class in every match. However, with enough practise and discipline, the simple elements can always be well executed all of the time. It's all about maximising your potential while identifying the opponent's weak points. Secondly, a potential England manager also needs to openly despise the press, but while also knowing how to play them like a fiddle. Lastly, and most importantly in England's case, this manager must strike the fear of god into the hearts of the players. Brian Clough was the last English manager with all of the above qualities. Roy Keane on Clough: "Clough's advice to me before a game was: you get the ball and pass it to another player in a red shirt. That's really all I tried to do at both Nottingham Forest and Manchester United – pass and move – and I made a career out of it."

Capello is a very good manager. I was seriously worried when England landed him. But I think there has been a communication breakdown with the squad, and that Capello possibly underestimated the amount of media sycophancy the English squad have been subjected too since their teenage years, as well as the effect it has had upon them. Having Beckham as an advisor was bizarre.

With the above managerial profile in mind, Ferguson would be the ideal manager for England. He managed to get the best out of the likes of Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo. Look at what happened to them after they were no longer managed by him, they bought into their own hype. But hell will freeze over before Ferguson manages England.

The next best option would be David Moyes. But the English media would be absolutely vicious to a Scot managing England (except for Ferguson). He'd could be very good though. If he gets the job the ABE will have to work overtime.

(And I was wrong about Ireland dominating Germany 53-47 in possession at the World Cup in 2002. It was actually 57-43. And to think they made it to the final.)

[Bored Of Education]

England vs Germany... again

Yep. Of course England could keep possesion and pass the ball around, they have the necessary skill to do so.

Do you know what? I don't think they do. I am not being facetious or overly ABE, I just don't think they do.

Maybe, they do but they don't have the intelligence to do something with the possession or how to play a proper pass.